The Way of All Flesh

PREFACE

“We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God.”—ROM. viii. 28

Samuel Butleter began to write “The Way of All Flesh”
about the year 1872, and was engaged upon it intermittently until 1884.
It is therefore, to a great extent, contemporaneous with “Life
and Habit,” and may be taken as a practical illustration of the
theory of heredity embodied in that book. He did not work at it
after 1884, but for various reasons he postponed its publication.
He was occupied in other ways, and he professed himself dissatisfied
with it as a whole, and always intended to rewrite or at any rate to
revise it. His death in 1902 prevented him from doing this, and
on his death-bed he gave me clearly to understand that he wished it
to be published in its present form. I found that the MS. of the
fourth and fifth chapters had disappeared, but by consulting and comparing
various notes and sketches, which remained among his papers, I have
been able to supply the missing chapters in a form which I believe does
not differ materially from that which he finally adopted. With
regard to the chronology of the events recorded, the reader will do
well to bear in mind that the main body of the novel is supposed to
have been written in the year 1867, and the last chapter added as a
postscript in 1882.